


tidal

by wbtrashking (fan_nerd)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-04 16:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10283087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fan_nerd/pseuds/wbtrashking
Summary: Victor's eyes linger on one of the photographs.Maybe he's been up too long, straining his eyes in the darkroom, but it seems that there's a glimmering blue tail peeking out of the surface of the ocean. It's too large to belong to any aquatic creature he recognizes.His heart races as the chemicals make the picture clearer. It's quite possible that Victor has captured something spectacular.





	

**Author's Note:**

> do i have other AU things to do? yes, absolutely. instead, here is this. OTL
> 
> i couldn't sleep last night because i got so hype about this concept, hot dang. unbeta'd as heckie.
> 
> enjoy! ♥

Before Yakov has the gall to send Victor off on a trip to  _reorganize his thoughts_  or something equally degrading, Chris sends his best friend to the beach, reasoning that Victor needs a break - a  _long_  one.

He brings his dog, packs up dozens rolls of film with all of his printing gear, and stuffs a suitcase full of clothes on his trip to Chris's secluded resort. Getting all of his papers in order and chartering a private flight to the area puts quite a dent in his savings, but it's worth it, in the end.

Makkachin takes to the area well, lying in the sun with his tongue out while Victor sets up a tripod, snapping wonderful photographs of the landscape, sighing happily and enjoying the feeling of the waves licking at his toes. It's all very serene, and even though the tourist spots are fairly peaceful, there is nothing quite like this strip of land he has to himself. When he has an opportunity, he's going to send his meddlesome friend a gift for twisting his arm and sending him here. Once Victor is done being frustrated, he is truly very thankful.

For now, he's going to refocus his camera, poorly attempt to tan, and try to get some good shots while the sun is still slightly overcast. It's nice to feel like the weight of the world isn't on his shoulders; like advertising companies and fashion bureaus aren't all clamoring for his attention at the same time and trying to plaster his own photos on every street corner. It's very rewarding to take photographs that he actually  _wants_  to take. He hasn't indulged himself in strictly personal projects since he was sixteen years old.

He spends four days wandering the beach for the perfect place to unwind and read a book while taking time lapse photos. Makkachin begs for attention at the halfway point, when he's taking his twelve p.m. shot, and he steps away from the camera for a moment. The photo's going to be slightly overexposed, but it's less troublesome than starting all over, keeping his dog out of the shot, so he leaves the shutter ajar and fusses at the old boy.

When he packs up at midnight, exhausted from staying up for twenty-four hours straight, he walks back to the cabin and yawns, barely keeping his eyes open as he adjusts his bag on his shoulders. Kipping on the beach is hell on his shoulders.

Although he'd had snacks earlier, he fixes himself a light meal before heading to bed, inviting Makkachin to lie beside him. When he groggily rises in the morning, he feeds the dog, lets him out to take care of business, cleans up, and gets to work on developing his photos.

Makkachin isn't allowed inside the darkroom, so he kneels, kisses the poodle, and softly closes the door behind himself, putting his camera bag down on the work table to his right. The part of the cabin that he's turned into a darkroom has only one window, and it's been covered with a thick black curtain to protect his prints and negatives. He flicks on a lamp that he's put red gel casings over and hums when he turns on the enlarger, flipping through a portfolio of photo papers for a size that feels true to the project. There's hundreds of A4's in the tote, so he rolls his eyes and takes out a handful of them.

"Should have brought my tapes," he murmurs to himself. Victor would love to be listening to Pink Floyd, Bulat Okudzhava, Fleetwood Mac, or ABBA while he develops the film. It's monotonous work, no matter how dear the process is to his heart, so he hums to fill the silence. He works for about an hour, pinning up some of his favorite prints after they come out of the fixative, and yawns as he puts on fresh gloves to examine the negatives once more.

He squints at one of the photos from four p.m., wondering what the smudge in the corner could be. Victor doesn't think much of it until the photo is blown up and it's clear that it isn't just sand blowing past the lens. He's never seen a fish in an encyclopedia or in a photograph that has a tail that long, or with a pattern so striking. As he puts the A4 into the developer, he paces the room, unable to focus on his other prints.

Anxiety eats at him. What if he'd found some rare species? Something astounding? Ten minutes pass before the photo has an acceptable amount of contrast, so he rinses it off and squints at the tail. He swears there's a flash of something that looks like human skin attached to it around, too.

Before he can get carried away with thoughts of the impossible, he shakes his head. The tail had probably flipped over a pale jellyfish or a particularly smooth shell. Photography is an art designed for capturing things that the eye couldn't see crisply, to keep images immortalized forever. Staring at that image, the silvery-blue tail with royal blue spots and a couple of black stripes distracts him for the rest of the day.

He emerges from the darkroom in a daze, making a quick sandwich for himself.

Victor's not sure what the subject of that photo is, but that image is striking enough to win a contest.

He decides to keep it to himself.

What's a great picture without being able to recreate it to some degree? If he's found some rare species, he'll have to properly authenticate its' existence. Strange, how this getaway has changed him. He'd never been particularly interested in documentaries or nature shoots before, but here, with nobody sending him around the globe for multi-million dollar jobs, he's become fixated on something out in the ocean.

//

Victor winds up trawling the beach for hours with his camera around his neck and Makkachin padding behind him, panting softly. He has to walk an hour away from the cabin to buy a paddle board. It later occurs to him that he should have invested in a waterproof case for the 35mm. Instead, he just sighs and puts it away for an hour or two in the afternoons, getting his exercise while Makkachin guards his things. He keeps his eyes glued to the rocky outcropping where he'd taken that fantastic still, waiting and hoping for that creature to reappear.

It takes him a couple weeks to get frustrated with his lack of progress. He's a day away from giving up on nature photography as a whole, quite frankly getting bored of taking pictures of shrubbery and algae. Still, one day, he sees a tail shimmering underneath the surface of the water and he, like a fool, jumps in headfirst, determined to do  _something_  different, to see if it had just been a fluke that he'd captured on film.

He dives down too deeply, the saltwater hurting his eyes. Before he can make it back to the surface, something brushes against his ankles, which causes him to panic and he swallows a mouthful of brine. His thoughts are racing, because what's happening is like a cruel joke. Victor Nikiforov, world-renowned workaholic, dying on an extended vacation because he'd been obsessed with proving that he'd seen an undiscovered creature in the ocean on a private beach.

His life doesn't flash before his eyes or anything - he's too busy trying not to drown, on getting air back into his lungs. Once he realizes that it's over and he should give up, something fuzzily turns up in his vision. There's a face; the mouth is moving. He blacks out before figuring what they're trying to say to him, but his body recognizes the pain of being hauled onto a hard surface.

By the time he comes back around, gasping and coughing, he realizes that there's someone unfamiliar touching his face. Someone lovely is wearing dangling pearl earrings, dark hair damp as they loom over Victor with wide eyes. Victor tries to thank them for saving his life, but his voice is shot, and before he can clear his weary throat, his eyes catch on the shimmering color pattern he'd been looking for these past few days.

 _A merperson_ , he thinks foggily.  _Am I dreaming?_

He reaches for the scales shakily and the creature pushes his hand away, looking worried. There are slightly luminescent gills on the creature's sides, and Victor's savior begins slinking back into the water.

"Wait," he barely croaks the word out before the gorgeous merperson disappears.

Victor takes a long time to turn the experience over in his mind, at last disturbed by Makkachin's loud barks. He gets up on wobbly legs, narrowly avoids knocking his head into a rock when he stumbles, and makes his way back to the cabin with a racing heart.

A part of his mind screams at him for not getting a picture, but a larger part of his brain tells him that nobody would believe him, and he's not sure that he wants them to.

This is an experience too momentous to share with anyone else.

//

It's not like Victor  _wants_  to drown.

He's just chasing a visage, which is typical of him; he's a somewhat obsessive person. Once he latches onto an image, eager for information and knowledge about things he doesn't recognize, he has to chase it until he's miserable, running on empty and lost, left wondering why he'd gotten so trapped in chasing the image in the first place.

That's why his photos had wound up in  _Vogue_ , why he'd been contacted by several advertisement firms and fashion lines, why he'd gotten no sleep and no time at home with his dog for the past seven years, chasing dreams. His childish passion for taking photos of things that had caught his eye had been elevated to a status so high that he has more money than he can feasibly use, but he hasn't had a lover since he was twenty-two. Chris had been the one to tell him, via post cards and very long discussion on the phone, that he'd been having a depressive episode, hence why he'd sent Victor to a remote beach to relax and rekindle his passion for the craft.

Yakov would have been the next to suggest doing so, but his method would have been far more cruel, and his resort location would have been far more crowded than Chris's. In the end, he's thankful that the people around him care so much about his mental health, even if the media will never accept that the brilliant, beautiful, famous photographer is 'odd', or 'touched in the head'.

He shakes his head of those thoughts. The past two months have been good. Great, even.

They're going to get better once he formally thanks his savior and confirms the existence of merfolk. It takes a few more days of Victor going out on his paddle board and diving into the water recklessly before the dark-eyed creature bobs to the surface, looking a little disgruntled.

Victor beams at them, hooking his arms tightly on the board as he speaks. "Hello! Are you a mermaid?" It's rude to make assumptions, so he continues, "A merman?" The second try makes the brunette nod so Victor slides himself up onto the reinforced foam. "Can you speak?"

There is a long pause before the merman replies, and his voice is quiet. "Yes." Victor's eyes shine as the light catches in the creature's elegant earrings. "Why are you out here, human?"

"I'm Victor," he says, holding out his hand somewhat awkwardly, trying to brace himself on the paddle board. "I wanted to thank you for saving my life." Dark, wary eyes study him, saying nothing. Victor is so thrilled that this is happening that he forgets about photos entirely, too entranced by the fact that he's talking to someone that the world thinks is mythological. Life is strange. "Sorry, do you not shake hands as a greeting?"

"Not usually," Yuuri says, swimming a bit closer and squinting at Victor's pale palm. For some reason, Victor had expected a mostly-aquatic entity to be much paler, but Yuuri's skin is bronze, and when he looks up from under dark lashes, Victor is honestly struck by the familiar parts of the merman's upper body, and equally unfamiliar parts, like the shimmering patches of skin and the part below the surface that is made up of several feet of a finned tail. "I'm Yuuri, human. You should stop trying to kill yourself."

"What?" The words come as such a shock that Victor wobbles. "No, no! I don't want to die. I just didn't know how else to find you." Yuuri keeps giving him a disbelieving expression, so Victor points his finger to the shore, where Makkachin is napping lazily under the sun and his camera bag is probably getting a bit too hot, even if it is insulated. "See, everything left in place. I couldn't leave my camera to waste and commit suicide. It was very expensive. I couldn't leave my dog either, for that matter. He's a very needy old thing."

The merman finally laughs at that, covering his mouth to hide his somewhat pointed teeth. "Well, if you say so. I'll be leaving, then."

"Wait!" Victor holds out an arm. "Could you come back some time? Could I..." he reaches for words and finally decides on, "Could we meet here again tomorrow, just to chat?" Yuuri's jewelry is well-crafted and he's not overbearingly gorgeous, but he's still an unknown entity to Victor, and Victor is eager to learn about his life. What does Yuuri eat? What does he do when he's not swimming near the surface, trying to keep humans from committing suicide or drowning on accident?

Yuuri takes in his blue eyes and matted silver hair and nods just slightly. "I suppose I could... do that." His eyes flick to the shore and he quickly says, "No pictures," and Victor eagerly nods his head, although the request does make him a bit disappointed. "Just talking?"

"Just talking," he assures the merman, and holds out his hand again, this time, curling all of his fingers up except his pinky. "This gesture is for promises."

A slightly webbed hand comes out of the water, long, tan fingers curling to mirror Victor's fist, and they hook pinkies. "Same time tomorrow, then. I really have to go."

With that, Yuuri bobs below the surface, and before Victor even has time to wave goodbye, the merman is out of sight, the only evidence of his being there a slight ripple in the water.

//

Victor spends the morning snapping photos of Makkachin, fussing with the old dog as he clicks his tongue and tries to focus the lens. White balancing takes too long on exceedingly bright days like this, and his restless poodle isn't helping at all. After filling up half a roll with somewhat decent takes, he puts the camera back in his bag and slings it over his shoulders, walking closer to the rocky side of the shore around the cabin. He hums and adjusts until he's comfortable, closing his eyes after a few minutes and opening them again when he hears a splash.

Since he's feeling sated and lazy, he waves sleepily to the merman. "Hello, Yuuri. How are you?"

"I'm alright," Yuuri mumbles his reply, pulling himself out of the water in a motion so swift and strong that Victor blinks in surprise. The brunette sees how wide Victor's eyes are when he wipes his brow, he chuckles. "What? Is my tail that weird?"

"Honestly, I was thinking that you were impressive, is all." Now that Yuuri mentions it, his eyes drift to the glimmering caudal peduncle. "It's beautiful."

Yuuri's cheeks color deeply and Victor wakes up quite a bit at the sight. "Geez, you don't have to...flatter me or anything, just because you've never seen merfolk before."

Victor opens his mouth to tell him that it had just been a simple compliment, because Yuuri himself is quite an attractive entity. His tail aside, he has a soft face and very full lips, but he senses that the other man would not take well to the words, so he just nods his head and smiles. "Well, that's why we're here to chat, right? To learn more about each other." He sits up and asks, "Did you want to meet my dog?"

"Dog?" Yuuri asks, tilting his head just slightly.

"Mm," the silver-haired man grins and pats his legs, whistling. "Makkachin! Come here, boy." The poodle dutifully pads over at the words, barking happily as Victor's hand rests on his head. His paws are soaked now, and he's a bit too large for Victor to lift, but he puts his fingers underneath Makkachin's collar and holds the old poodle between his legs to make sure he doesn't bother his new companion. "Yuuri, this is Makkachin, who is a very good boy, albeit a jumpy one." When he sees that the merman is nervous, he smiles reassuringly. "You can touch him."

"He won't...eat me or anything?" Yuuri warily holds out a hand, jumping when Makkachin leans forward, sniffing it.

"He's too lazy to eat you, and I wouldn't let him do that." He presses a kiss to Makkachin's back and coos in his native language. "Don't be scared, just put your hand there and move it. I take immaculate care of his fur, so I assure you, it's very soft."

Yuuri tenderly reaches out, gasping as he feels the warmth of Makkachin beneath his hand. The dog leans into the touch and Yuuri smiles, unconsciously showcasing his teeth in the motion and Victor chuckles airily. "He's wonderful. I've never seen one up close."

"Yeah."

"I love him," Yuuri says in complete awe. It warms Victor's heart to see such an earnest expression on the other man, and his tail is even flipping a bit, slapping the surface of the tide pool. "How did you find him?"

"I bought him at a store," Victor answers quickly, remembering the day vividly. "He's seven now, and he's been with me through a great many things." He doesn't think fondly back on most of those hellish nights, because he truly hadn't spent enough time alone with his poodle, and he's making up for lost time now.

In a lot of ways, this trip has helped him clear his head and recall things that he loves dearly. He'd neglected Makkachin in some ways, just like he'd neglected himself, but talking to Yuuri about this doesn't bring back dredge up bad memories, and for that, he's grateful.

"Amazing," Yuuri breathes, entranced with Makkachin's floppy ears. "There's nothing like this underwater."

Victor leans back on his palms and unhooks his fingers from Makkachin's collar, letting him jump over Yuuri's chest and lick at the portion of his torso that transitions from a humanoid skin into a scaled tail. "Really?"

After a pause, Yuuri stops stroking Makkachin and flicks his dark eyes up at Victor. "There's fish, of course, but the ocean's quiet for the most part. We go about our business and take care of each other. After chatting with neighbors and running errands, most merfolk just swim around or sleep." He sighs and slides down on the rock so that most of his body is back underwater. "A lot of our kind were hunted in the past by sailors and tourists, and people thought that we were worth money for tears or something. I'm one of the only ones who likes venturing up here to see the humans, even though I know it's dangerous." He swims in a circle before hooking his arms on the face of the rock that Victor's sitting on. "But you seem pretty harmless. I'm glad that you're the one who saw me."

The light catches on Yuuri's jewelry and Victor has never wanted to capture anyone on film more than he wants to honor the visage of the merman. "I'm happy that you feel that way." Victor smiles. "Maybe we can meet here to chat more often."

"Yes," Yuuri agrees with a wave. "Same time next week?"

"I'll be here."

Victor watches him swim off, wondering if he'll ever stop being astonished by the presence of such an astounding individual's existence.

"Getting to know a merman," Victor murmurs to himself as he strolls back to the shore. "Reality is truly stranger than fiction."

//

Victor sets up a tripod to capture the sunrise before heading to town to get groceries. He makes a couple of cursory phone calls to Chris, to his parents, and he avoids calling Yakov because he's not in the mood to be yelled at and ignore the older man. Then, he grabs a couple of prints and snacks for Makkachin, heading down to what has become his favorite spot on the quiet beach. Most days, he devours old gothic novels and doodles lightly, but on Saturday afternoons, a head peeks out of the surface and Yuuri joins him to talk about whatever they feel like.

It seems that the merman has eight people in his small community.

Minako is an outspoken woman with a sleek, streamlined tail who had taught Yuuri had to chase small fish down and how to find fresh seaweed to eat. (Victor quickly discovers that having beautiful fins is a quality that merfolk use as a part of aesthetic bias, or perhaps it is only Yuuri who does this; he'll probably never truly know.) There is his sister, Mari, a stocky woman with square shoulders and a hearty volume, using that to stun predators lurking in the depths. Next, there's his mother, Hiroko, a soft homemaker with a penchant for raiding shipwrecks, and his father, Toshiya who likes to kip to the surface on special occasions, when everyone is too drunk to remember seeing him, and he drinks their fine alcohol.

There's also a young family of merfolk. Yuuko is a childhood friend of Yuuri's who often wears bracelets strung together with broken fishing wire and glass shards. Her husband, Takeshi, a somewhat stern man with a heart of gold. They have three children together, and although they admittedly wear Yuuri out, he's happy to find that their small community is expanding. They're miles away from the next area populated with friendly merfolk.

One day, Yuuri pulls up on the rock where Victor usually sits, letting his tail barely touch Victor's toes with the fins. "I've traveled to other communities." This close, it's easier for Victor see the gills on Yuuri's neck and ribs, even if they're still at the moment. "I have a friend on the other side of the world."

"What are they like?" It strikes Victor again how very transient these exchanges are. Every time he speaks to Yuuri feels like it could be the last time he'll see him and now, after two months of seeing him, after four months of avoiding his responsibilities to the world, Victor is certain that he wouldn't know what to do if Yuuri stopped visiting the surface.

"He's very talented." Yuuri's voice picks up volume and breadth every time they speak as well, growing more confident and comfortable with Victor. It's nice. "Just like humans, we pick up hobbies. He likes to race, and I hear he's won a few competitions."

"Fascinating," Victor says, but he means for the word to be more directed at Yuuri's enthusiasm for his friendship than about his story. "Are there any beauty pageants?"

Yuuri puts a finger on his chin. "I'm sure there are. Why do you ask?"

Victor reaches for Yuuri's lips and touches them carefully, like he can't resist doing so. Much like the first time he'd held a camera, he'd been eager to touch all the buttons and figure out what made the device work. Now, his chest feels light as a feather as he locks eyes with the flushed merman. Yuuri has lungs too - he's told Victor so - and he wonders if they feel glued to his chest as well. "I'm certain that you'd sweep the competition in those events, as gorgeous as you are."

Yuuri slinks off of the rock after nearly knocking Victor backwards, and the silver-haired photographer struggles to stay upright.

He hopes he hasn't pushed away the best part of this extended trip by being too forward, but the merman hadn't  _expressly_  rejected him, either, so it gives Victor cause to hope. Before he can slip away and take solace in his darkroom, Yuuri bobs back to the surface, cheeks still burning red. "I'm not. I'm not  _that_  good-looking."

Victor whips around suddenly, so relieved that he sighs. "Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? I think that I'm the one who has a say in whether you're attractive or not."

"Ah, stop," Yuuri groans covering his face and splashing in the water anxiously. "You're so much more handsome than I am, that's not fair."

"What?" Victor blinks, unable to hold back his foolishly wide grin. "You really think so, Yuuri?"

The merman swims away for a moment, and when he comes back, Victor's wading in the water as it washes up over his clothes. "Why are you coming further out here?"

The human rolls his eyes. "I  _can_  swim, you know. Perhaps not as well as you, but the point stands. You keep moving away from me when I want to get closer."

Yuuri keeps staring at him as he starts to swim in place, pedaling his legs in a motion to stay above water until the merman's arms come around him and Victor grins. Yuuri says, "This reminds me of all those times I had to save you from drowning."

"What can I say," Victor murmurs, putting the back of his left hand against Yuuri's warm cheek. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face."

"Har, har," Yuuri laughs dryly, swimming idly around the outcropping with Victor.

They spend a few minutes appreciating the setting sun before Yuuri begrudgingly returns Victor to the shore. Shockingly, Victor gets swept up in his bubbly feelings and kisses the merman's lips before tumbling out of the brunette's hold and waving Yuuri goodbye. "See you next time! I'll show you some of my photos."

Yuuri thinks about Victor for the rest of the evening, bumping into Mari in a haze on the way back to his alcove.

//

When he pulls up the portfolio, Yuuri is truly amazed. He's afraid to touch the veneered paper for fear of ruining it with wet hands, but Victor assures him that he can always make other copies, and that the really nice ones are already stored at his place in St. Petersburg, besides. The merman looks at the women in brilliant colors, holding objects and posing and hums. "How far away is your home, Victor?"

The answer is that it's thousands of miles away, of course, but as his sixth month on the beach comes to a close, he's unfortunately faced with the reality that the world is too small, and he can't run away forever. Victor adores the quiet, covets every moment that he can listen to the waves calming crashing on the rocks together with Yuuri, but he's going to have to address the media eventually.

More annoyingly, he's going to have to deal with the projects he'd left behind, the contracts he'd broken, and more. Victor doesn't particularly care about all the toes he'd stepped on when he'd left the city, but he does miss knowing what's going on in the world with his own eyes, instead of reading the newspaper or listening to the radio.

"It's several hours away by plane," Victor eventually says, taking a moment to apologize to Yuuri for the long pause of silence. "I miss it, sometimes."

"You've been here a long time, huh?" Yuuri's still flipping through the prints, touching them reverently. "Do you have any pictures of the town?"

"A few," the silver-haired man answers with a small smile. "I think I left those behind when I traveled, though. The photos are old, so they're a bit unpolished, but very nostalgic."

Yuuri finally closes the folio and puts it aside, staring at Victor with a somewhat dreamy look on his face. "It must be nice to ride in airplanes and fly. I've always wondered what human cities were like."

The impermanence of this relationship - friendship, crush,  _whatever_  this is, that makes them lock eyes and enjoy the few hours a week they can spend together - truly strikes Victor then, and he takes Yuuri's hand, uncaring that the merman seems startled. "If there were any way for you to come with me, I promise, I'd show you the world." He's being awfully ridiculous, he's sure, but the idea of losing Yuuri to the ocean for the rest of his life, never knowing if Yuuri were still alive out in the shores of this beach, breaks his spirit.

"Don't say things like that," Yuuri grumbles lightly, continuing to hold Victor's gaze, hands growing warm to the touch. "It's frowned upon for merfolk to fall in love with humans."

"Are you?" Victor asks desperately, drawing closer to Yuuri. "In love with me?"

With ruddy cheeks, Yuuri softly replies, "Don't you think it's a bit too soon to say?"

In the same breath, the brunette leans forward and kisses Victor. Both of their eyes fall closed, the slick feeling of Yuuri's tail another sensation for Victor to get lost in. When they break away, Victor whispers, "Could I touch you?" Yuuri blushes deeply and Victor clears his throat and explains, "I just wanted to see what your skin and scales feel like, pervert."

The merman rolls his eyes and Victor chuckles. "Go ahead."

Victor's hands are pale against Yuuri's olive skin. Even though Yuuri's been out of the water for some time, the humanoid part of his torso still feels quite slick. He squirms when Victor's fingers glance past his chest and creep to his waist.

In one of their meetings, the merman had explained that his kind had evolved with humans side-by-side, but the humans were what merfolk had once considered a product of deformation. This is why Yuuri has vocal chords, lungs, and luxurious hair, along with the dark gills running down his sides, a swim bladder, and, most obviously, his fascinating tail.

The human inhales sharply as he touches Yuuri's tail, loving the reflection of the afternoon sun against the scales. Yuuri's adorably embarrassed look, with his tightly-closed eyes and shallow breaths, makes this even better. "You're beautiful, Yuuri." He cups Yuuri's jaw as he says the words, pinky catching in the dangling pearl earrings the merman is fond of wearing. "Truly, you are, tail and all. Your tail is a part of you, and it doesn't bother me."

"It  _should_." Yuuri chides him, but he's licking his lips and he gingerly toys with the ends of Victor's silver hair, surely pulling Victor in for another kiss, and Victor is all to easy to follow Yuuri's motion. "You weirdo."

"Mmhmm," Victor hums, hooking his arms over Yuuri's shoulders and running his tongue over Yuuri's bottom lip once they pant open-mouthed to catch their breaths again. "I suppose that I am."

Yuuri lets go of Victor's hand very slowly that day and both of them wave to each other until the merman is out of sight. Victor tucks his small portfolio under his arm after sighing a hundred times, petting Makkachin and smiling so hard that his cheeks hurt.

//

The thing about early love is that it's simple. There's pleasure in the stolen glances, in laughing about the sensation of saltwater and rain over their bodies, in learning more about each other, in studying each other's expressions. For six weeks, Victor lets Yuuri push him out in deep ocean waters, the two of them marveling at the sunset until Victor reminds the merman that his dog is waiting for him back at the cabin, kissing the dark-haired beauty good night and parting out of habitual circumstances more than desire.

Victor had often made fun of couples in their  _honeymoon_  phases, but as he locks hands with Yuuri and kisses the merman's temple, he understands why people are so eager to flaunt their happiness to others.

Yuuri isn't the one to burst Victor's rose-colored bubble, however; it's Yakov. He's calling around the same time that Victor typically makes his routine phone call to his best friend, so he picks up with a yawn, emerging from the darkroom blearily. "Chris, I told you that I'd give you a ring a bit later than usual. You don't think I'd have the gall to forgo our chats and miss all the juicy gossip, do you?"

"Well, seeing as how you've been avoiding me for the better part of a year," Yakov's cutting tone chides him, "yes, I do think you're brazen enough to ignore your silly friend."

"Hello Yakov," Victor brightly greets him, even though he feels like pinching the bridge of his nose and hanging up. "So lovely to speak to you, at last."

"Don't give me that." The older man is within all rights to rip into Victor. He'd been the one to get the silver-haired man some of his most prestigious jobs, to help Victor figure out how to buy proper lenses and discounted materials for photo processing. Victor had started messing around with negatives in Yakov's garage, and he does owe his old mentor the courtesy of  _one_  phone call, among other things. "Where are you, Vitya? When are you planning on coming home?"

Victor knows that the fashion photography industry is an ever-changing beast, and he'd be lucky to find a place in the circuit, as flippantly as he'd left the scene so many months ago. Besides, he's not even sure that he  _wants_  to go back. He never would have thought that he'd so peaceful in this unknown corner of the world that feels like it is only his, and yet. At first, it had just been a pleasant trip, but now, he has Yuuri, and Victor feels like this is all he needs.

He still has more money than he'll use in one lifetime, and as long as Chris will let him stay in the cabin for a small fee every month, he's not sure that he wants to leave. Maybe every once in a while, if he can ever figure out how to feasibly travel with Yuuri, but that's unlikely. "I don't know, Yakov. I might show my face now and again. Do you miss me?"

"Hardly!" Victor snorts at his words. Yakov is a dirty liar. "I have junior photographers under my wing, of course, all of them more dedicated to the craft than you."

He doesn't call them  _prodigies_ , which is what he'd always called Victor, and the silver-haired man takes a certain kind of pride in that distinction. "Mm," he replies casually, picking at his nails lazily.

"Don't blow this off, Vitya. This isn't finished. I'll be calling you again. Goodbye."

When he hangs up, the  _ting_  of the phone hitting the receiver makes Victor's ears hurt. He calls Chris a few minutes later and tells his friend that he's in no mood to talk.

It's not his day to meet up with Yuuri, but he takes Makkachin down to the rocky side of the beach and sits in the sand, listlessly pointing his 35mm anything that catches his eye.

Reminiscing about his past with the merman usually makes Victor feel warm, if a bit tired. Remembering how truly ridiculous it had been - those long nights with no sleep, those galas and conferences with models where people had urged him to drink until he was ill, all the drugs he'd had running through his system - it makes him feel miserable.

He pulls Makkachin into his arms after a while, thinking about just throwing his camera in the ocean, but he thinks better of it. There might be a lot of terrible things associated with the device, but there are lots of beautiful things on this roll of film as well.

It's horrible of him, but he wishes that he had a photograph of Yuuri to look at, both because his beau is handsome, and also because he's a creature of lore that lives beneath the ocean and Victor can only see him once a week.

He lies down on the sand and closes his eyes, so overwhelmed with emotions that he feels vacant. Makkachin licks his fingers and Victor offers the poodle a weak grin, but he doesn't want to do  _anything_ except get swept underneath the tide, where Yakov's voice wouldn't reach him.

As if sensing his melodramatic air and need for companionship, someone that looks an  _awful_  lot like Yuuri rises from the ocean, though his tail has been replaced by flesh, mostly - there are still patches of scales on the shapely legs, and Victor sits up straight, so shocked that he nearly chokes on his spit.

When the man flushes deeply, Victor knows that his instinct is correct. " _Yuuri_?"

The merman holds up a pendant on his chest and then points to his throat, making motions to tell Victor that he can't speak, and he falls after taking three steps on the sand, obviously unused to the appendages. Victor runs to his side as quickly as he can stand, joined by Makkachin, and he gets the merman settled on his back, walking him to the cabin while he feverishly pants.

//

Yuuri had been elated, had been swimming circles around the caves, keeping mostly to himself, his chirrups and whistles bounding off of the rocks and reefs below the surface. It's an open secret that he's been kipping off to see a human, but nobody in the community knows just how dear the man has become to Yuuri, and he likes it better that way.

After several weeks of listening to Victor's low timbre, after finding affection bubbling out of his lips until he feels like he's drowning, he pleas for help. His family can't know about what he's been doing. He finishes his chores, bringing back the fruits of his labor with an ashen face, then he tells Mari that he'll be gone for the evening, hoping that she'll make some excuse for him at suppertime.

He swims to a place that he'd been just twice as a boy, where a merman with a tail patterned in much the same fashion as a tiger shark resides. His skin is bronze, the result of his adventures around the world, and he's rumored within communities of merfolk for knowing many things and holding items of tremendous power.

Minako had told him that magic was real when he was three years old, but dangerous. Too dangerous to mess with. It had made him exceedingly nervous to search for this man, but Yuuri yearns to spend more time with Victor, even if the cost is steep.

"I'll loan you this pendant out of respect for your curiosity," Celestino tells Yuuri, "but there are conditions. Are you willing to accept those and promise me that you'll adhere to them?"

Yuuri nods before he can stop himself, heart racing.

 _The first._  He can only use the pendant three times - no more. Using it a fourth time will guarantee that Yuuri remains a human, but he will no longer be able to survive underwater. In fact, he might lose his very ability to swim. Yuuri grows anxious after hearing this condition and its' warnings, but he continues to give his assent for the loan.

 _The second._  Yuuri will not be able to speak at all when he's wearing the pendant. For reasons beyond either merman, the pendant seems to work most effectively by trapping the voice of a sea-person, and although this is somewhat cumbersome, this isn't enough to make Yuuri give up his determination to stand with Victor, to walk along the beach with him and kiss him on solid ground.

 _The third._ If, for some reason, a human other than Victor finds out that Yuuri is a merperson while he’s wearing the pendant, Yuuri will die.

“I’m not an expert in this craft. This pendant was _given_ to me,” Celestino explains when he sees that at last, Yuuri has grown wary of accepting the object. “I’ve heard that there are other merfolk in the world who study this sort of thing, who have powers beyond our imaginations, but I am a simple creature, and this was enough for me.” He dangles the pendant in front of Yuuri with a soft smile. “Are you still willing to accept it?”

The younger merman steels his expression and exhales a steady stream of bubbles. “Yes. I accept.”

Thus, he receives the pendant, tucking it away for the evening and saves it for the moment he’ll meet with Victor again.

//

"I  _must_  be dreaming," Victor murmurs, taking Yuuri's hand in his own as the brunette sweats and slowly drinks water. "How did this happen? How long can you stay?" He gasps as panic grabs his heart. "Do I need to get you back to the ocean right away? This can't be good for your gills."

Before he can rush off, Yuuri grabs Victor's wrist and smiles exhaustedly. He just shakes his head, looking a bit frustrated that he can't speak, but Victor sits down and decides to reason out what's happening.

"You probably don't know how to write in this language, correct?" Victor offers and Yuuri nods in agreement. It occurs to him that if they're going to go by gestures, he should try to keep his inquiries simple, so that his companion can respond to yes or no questions.

He begins by asking the most pressing thing. "Are you safe, staying on the surface?"  _Yes._

"Have you always been able to do this?"  _No._  Victor takes a moment to rein in his racing thoughts and focus on Yuuri's appearance. His earrings are carved from shell this time, and he's wearing a pendant instead of a spiky regal bib-necklace, and he then asks, "Is it because of that?" Yuuri nods, so he continues, "You got it from your parents?" The merman shakes his head and Victor frowns. "From someone you trust?"  _Yes_.

Victor is somewhat relieved by that, so he calms down a bit and presses his forehead to Yuuri's shoulder. "How long can you stay? A couple hours?"  _No_. "Longer?"  _Yes._  "Forever?"

Yuuri's face falls at that, and this time, he gestures  _no_  very solemnly.

"Ah," Victor says, smiling to mask his disappointment. "I figured. I wouldn't want to take you from your community, besides. Could you stay for a week or two?" Yuuri makes a face like he's unsure, so Victor offers, "A few days?" At that, Yuuri nods and Victor grows quite excited, momentarily forgetting all his concerns and anxieties from the past few hours. "Oh, that's wonderful! I'll find you some clothes to wear, then. It wouldn't do to have you running about town naked."

The brunette flushes at that right on time, and Victor pulls him in for a quick kiss before he stands up. "If you're not too tired right now, I could show you how I make my prints. Would you like that?" Yuuri nods and Victor runs a hand through Yuuri's bangs before walking away. "Wait here. I'll be right back."

And so Yuuri waits, studying the place where Victor lives. The ceilings are high, but there’s not much on the walls, and unlike his own cave, which is littered with fish bones, carvings, and jewelry from shipwrecks, this place seems rather devoid of life.

It's spacious, somewhat cold, and not quite what he imagined.

Then again, months ago, Yuuri couldn't have imagined that he'd be sneaking around with a mystical pendant to meet with the human he's been seeing. It’s been a week filled with surprises for both of them.

When Victor returns, he helps Yuuri awkwardly put on a loose t-shirt and a pair of briefs, tittering over Yuuri's grunts and snorts, watching the brunette's slightly webbed fingers catch on the cloth. Yuuri sticks his tongue out at the sensation of it on his skin and Victor's laughter increases in volume and amusement.

Once the two of them make their way to the only room in the cabin that Victor truly considers  _his_ , Yuuri feels significantly more at ease. The room is highly organized, but there are prints hanging to dry, varying bottles of chemicals on low shelves, and the light is soft and dim. It’s nice. “Here’s where I make the magic happen,” Victor says with a flourish and Yuuri snickers. “Ah, you finally laughed. I was worried that I’d put you off, since you can’t talk.”

Yuuri reaches for Victor’s hand and squeezes it reassuringly, pleased when Victor squeezes back, smiling softly, privately, like Yuuri’s the only thing in the world that matters right now. Victor walks him around the tubs and talks about his craft, swept up in his explanations. He talks until he gets tired of rambling, and he tells Yuuri that he’s going to phone a place in town for a taxi.

The merman tenses at that, unsure of how long he can spend time in town without giving away the fact that he’s not human. Victor looks so carefree, so much happier than he had been on the shore earlier, so Yuuri closes off his emotions and trots behind him, enjoying the experience of going new places and being able to lean up and kiss Victor whenever he pleases.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor murmurs as he rifles through his closet, “It’s so good to have you here, you have _no_ idea.”

The brunette agrees, and he runs a hand through Victor’s bangs with a toothy grin to convey his happiness. _I’m glad to be here_ , he wishes he could say back, but Victor seems to get that, regardless, so he leans into the taller man’s chest and just breathes.

This won’t last, he knows. But that doesn’t mean he can’t enjoy it while it does.

//

They make their way around town, exploring the local markets and restaurants for a few days before Yuuri returns, and Victor sees him to the ocean underneath the light of a half-moon. They've had a lot of fun, what with Yuuri curling up in Victor’s lap and flipping through photobooks, learning to read certain words and reveling in the warmth of near-constant hugs, throwing food at each other (with Makkachin happily getting caught in the crossfire), and wrinkling the sheets.

When Yuuri goes, Victor realizes that his affection for the merman runs deep. He doesn’t remember ever having fallen so fast or so hard for anyone, and every moment they’d spent together in the last week makes it so much harder to let the brunette go. Still, Yuuri slips the pendant off, whispers goodnight to Victor, and slinks under the water as soon as the royal blue scales on his tail finishes adapting and the filaments of his gills move in the water.

They’ve only been seeing each other a few months, and both of them wonder how best to say goodbye.

Victor has to go back to Russia, and soon.

Yuuri cries the whole night thinking about how short his time is. He cries for a love he has not yet lost; cries for a love he’s still too scared to call _love_ yet for how right the word feels in his head.

//

When the phone rings, Victor feels obligated to answer it. “Yakov. I get it. You need something. It’s a job that only I can do, yadda, yadda. What is it that you need?”

“Most of the art world has you up on a pedestal, you know,” the gruff older man tells him, making Victor sigh as he flops down on the couch, nearly sitting on Makkachin’s fluffy tail. “I don’t know if the timing of your vacation was idiotic or genius, but your canvas prints are selling like they’re Da Vinci sculptures. Every day, I have museums and fashion lines shouting up my ass for more, and they want nothing less than a Nikiforov shot. Vitya, if you do not come home soon, you are a bigger fool than I’d ever taken you for.”

The silver-haired man pinches the bridge of his nose and deadpans, “Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I am happier here?”

“It did. Twice, even. But I _know_ you, and as good as this beach makes you feel, and whomever you’ve met that’s keeping you glued there, I know how much you love those flashing lights.” Yakov has known Victor for far too long, and Victor clicks his tongue in annoyance. Unfortunately, he’s also correct. “There’s a Fall/Winter show in Milan two months from now. I’ll arrange to get you a flight. Either you show up or you’re off of the map for good.”

It occurs to Victor that Yakov has never been so stern about anything. He must mean business. “What if this place is my home? What if I find that I’m happy enough here to give up the limelight for good?”

“Then don’t come,” Yakov says, and with that, he hangs up the phone.

Victor grumbles for a moment before calling Chris to update him, then heading out to the shoreline with his poodle. There’s plenty of time to ruminate over his decision later. For now, he just wants to wax poetic with the merman who’s stolen his heart.

He pauses in the doorway of the cabin as he leaves. If he _does_ decide to leave, that would be the end for this romance, wouldn’t it?

The realization makes his steps heavy, a dark cloud hangs over his head the whole day, no matter how many wonderful photographs he takes.

//

When Yuuri comes up to the surface, he’s fresh-faced and flushed. Victor had gotten him a loose black shirt and high-waist jean shorts, which Yuuri says are strange to wear. After they have lunch and amble about the cabin, Victor very seriously takes Yuuri’s hand and says, “I know it’s poor form of me to ask, but I want to take a picture of you.” He laughs desperately, all his bottled emotions rising to the surface quickly. “I’m afraid that our time is running short, and I want to have something to remember you by.”

For a long moment, Yuuri wonders if Victor had somehow figured out that they only had one more chance to spend time like this together, but when he sees how very panicked the silver-haired man is, he stands up and loops his arms around Victor’s neck.

“I’m sorry. I’m getting carried away, aren’t I?” He blinks up at his companion, who is temporarily mute. “Oh, Yuuri. I don’t know what’s going through my head. I want to stay here, with you, _and_ I want to go back to the world of couture photography. I’m tired of having to give the world every part of me and getting nothing in return.” He stands up and hugs Yuuri tightly, both of them inhaling sharply at the suddenness of the motion.

Yuuri shakes his head, tears starting to bead on his eyelashes. He buries his face in Victor’s shoulder and just keeps shaking his head. _I want that too,_ he mouths the words, but nothing comes out, and then suddenly, Victor is crying too. _I’m sorry too._

The two of them just cry and comfort each other for a time. Once Victor takes a seat on the couch, Makkachin jumps up on his lap to lick away his tears and Yuuri laugh-wheezes. After a moment, the merman stands up, scales glinting in the light, and passes Victor his own camera bag. The brunette grabs a blanket to put over his legs and makes a motion like he’s pressing a camera shutter button.

Victor blinks with red-rimmed eyes. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Yuuri puts a hand on Victor’s leg and looks up at him with a toothy grin. _Please do._ Victor sits up quickly, staging the lights and begging Makkachin to behave, much to Yuuri’s amusement. He gets ten really fantastic shots after an hour or so, thanking Yuuri with many, many kisses.

They’ve kissed with tongue before, of course, but Yuuri is always hesitant to open his mouth completely because his teeth are so very sharp. Victor is willing to risk it to hear Yuuri’s hesitant moans, a motion away from rolling his hips over Yuuri, but he realizes that he hasn’t asked for permission to do anything like that. “Yuuri, darling, I’m afraid that I’m doing something untoward. This form isn’t permanent for you, and I’m, ah. I’m having quite the human reaction to all this stimulation.”

The merman pulls Victor on top of him, grabbing the taller man by the hips and making Victor let out a small noise in surprise. He grins sheepishly, motioning for Victor to cup him at the lower half. Victor laughs heartily when he finds that Yuuri is in the same position as him.

“I can relieve that problem for you,” Victor purrs lazily, happy to see Yuuri nod, even though he’s flushed up to his ears. “It’s rather an intimate thing to do, though. Are you sure?”

Yuuri pulls Victor down by the neck and just barely digs in his teeth, snorting when Victor winces.

“So pushy,” Victor grumbles good-naturedly, unbuttoning Yuuri’s pants and sinking down into a more viable position for putting his mouth on the merman. He spares a moment to hope that Makkachin will nap through this, uncaring of his shamelessness for the time being.

If this night is one of his last with Yuuri, he wants to cherish every second of their time together.

//

Yuuri stops eating to pick seaweed out of his teeth, and as soon as he’s finished, he blurts out, “I’ve been seeing a human.” As soon as he says the words, the members of his family all fall silent.

His father is the first to break it by saying. “Well, it’s about time you told us. Are they pretty?”

“Dad,” Mari hisses, elbowing the man in the side and making him cough, nearly choking on a fish bone in the process. “You can’t just ask that kind of stuff, he’s dating a _human_! Shouldn’t you ask about he got into this mess in the first place?”

Hiroko calms the resulting chaos with soft hands, swimming around the members of her family with strained smile, waiting for Yuuri to stop skittishly flicking his tail about and start talking again. “It just…happened. Victor kept diving to try and find me, and I couldn’t just let him drown.”

“And,” Hiroko asks, “Is this serious? Should we come up to meet him?”

The young man’s lips thin into a grimace. “It’s okay, Mom. He’ll be leaving soon. It wasn’t meant to last, after all, between a human and a merman.”

Mari breaks in and grabs her brother by the jaw, glaring at him. “ _What_? Hasn’t this been going on for months? I thought this was serious. You’ve gotten up to the surface a couple times with legs, too.” His eyes widen, glossing over as he starts to remember exactly what he’s going to lose when Victor leaves. “You wouldn’t have done that unless you _really_ loved this guy, no matter how pretty he is.”

Yuuri laughs wetly. “You’ve been spying on me.”

“Answer me, Yuuri,” Mari continues, refusing to back down even as her baby brother pushes her hand aside and pouts. “What happened? Why is he leaving? Why are you shutting us out?”

“Because this is _forbidden_ , isn’t it?” He finally snaps, swimming so that he’s at a higher position from his parents and sibling. In a frustrated motion, he pulls out the pendant Celestino had given him and screams, scaring off a nearby school of minnows. “I got this because I wanted to be by Victor’s side, I can only use this one more time or I’d never be able to come back. Besides, he’s going back to his home, where he belongs. His vacation is finally over, and who knows when he’ll come back.” After a pause, he breathlessly finishes, “or _if_ he’ll come back.”

The merman swims off with eyes clenched shut.

Hiroko and Toshiya fix Mari with a look.  She slumps her shoulders and grumbles, moving away from their gathering alcove to go hunt down her baby brother for a proper talk.

//

She finds Yuuri at a cavern close to an off-shore volcano, where a large cruise liner had sunk many years ago. When he’d been very small, he’d been fond of scrounging artifacts from the ship, but now, he often comes here to think. He has his tail pulled up when Mari swims up to him.

“Sorry,” she greets him sheepishly, joining him on the jutting rock overlooking the wreck. “I didn’t mean to get so heated. I just worry about you, you know? You so rarely get attached to anything, or _anyone_ , for that matter. I know you care about your human a lot.” Mari looks at Yuuri’s vacant expression and sighs. “Why are you so quick to give up?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Yuuri asks softly, threatening to cry again. “I want _everything_. I don’t want to give up being able to swim, my heritage – I don’t want to give up everything that I’ve ever known, for something that might not even last.” He dangles the pendant in front of him in frustration. “Even if I did, if I went with Victor, what if something were to happen? What if he falls out of love with me as soon as I become human?”

“That’s stupid and you know it,” she scoffs. Yuuri chuckles a bit at the words as well. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”

Yuuri blinks up at her in shock. “About _what_? Every merperson in the world knows that we’re not supposed to fall in love with humans. I wouldn’t ask for help only to get denied.”

“Well, we can’t stop you from falling, since you’ve already done that,” Mari proudly retorts. “We can at least help you find some way to have it all.” She lightly punches her brother in the arm, grinning. “You could stand to be selfish more often, bro. I’m sure Mom and Dad will help too. We like seeing you happy. That’s the only reason we haven’t said anything – because every week, you’ve been coming home with a goofy grin on your face.”

The merman flushes. “Do I really look that pleased?”

“You couldn’t hide your crush if you went into depths of the Mariana Trench. _Yes_ , you look that razzed about your dude.”

Yuuri puts his arm over his face and whines out of embarrassment, but he’s filled with vigor for finding a solution to his problems before Victor leaves the beach.

//

Victor makes slow motions to pack his things. There isn’t a lot to pack, amazingly – Victor hadn’t brought very much, by his own standards, but this process would be annoying even if he’d just packed clothes. Instead, he has to put all of his printing materials and chemicals in special cases, and he’s dragging his feet.

To make matters worse, Yuuri had told him that they couldn’t meet for some time. He knows when Victor is leaving because the silver-haired man had given him a date according to the lunar schedule. It just means that Victor feels even _more_ miserable about leaving the beach, because he’s forced to remember what life is like without Yuuri.

Every time he stares out at the ocean, he hopes to see a glimpse of that beautiful tail, and he’s denied.

He packs all of his rolls of film, packs his prints and papers and folios and keeps only two photos separate from everything else he knows. Soon, the only thing he’ll have to remember this quiet beach and his lover will be these images.

One is of Yuuri covering his mouth while he giggles, almost kicking off the blanket over his legs. The second is that first picture, the one that had enraptured Victor thoroughly enough that he’d nearly died, saved by a merman with a tender heart.

Two weeks before Victor’s plane leaves, he finds himself crying silently, petting his poodle and holding the photographs like they are precious.

The week that he sets off, he’s reached a point of closed-off resentment. If Yuuri doesn’t want to see him again, doesn’t want to say goodbye, then he supposes that he’d misread the whole situation. It breaks his heart to think that Yuuri hadn’t loved him as much as he’d loved Yuuri, that he’d be willing to let go so easily, but he mopes and tries to move on, albeit slowly.

He’s a moment away from calling Chris to lament his woes when a knock comes at his door and he sighs, going to answer it lazily. It’s a strange time of day for a paper to arrive, or a letter, but he opens it to the sight of Yuuri gasping for air, water still dripping off of his forearms.

“Sorry it took me so long,” Yuuri says once he can finally speak, leaning on the door frame and offering Victor a wobbly smile. “Can I come in?”

Victor is so dazed that he doesn’t realize that Yuuri can suddenly speak, even though he has legs.

It takes him even longer to realize that Yuuri’s not wearing the gaudy pendant around his neck either.

//

Yuuri gushes so quickly that Victor truthfully has a hard time figuring out what the brunette is saying. Once he’s able to slow down and get over the fact that he can talk, he can see Victor, _they can be together_ , he manages to tell the story.

He and his family had scoured the globe for hidden merfolk, listening to stories and looking for keys about old magic and lore from a time where their kind had married humans frequently. Yuuri says that he’d found a talented old woman with the power to crush that pendant, remove any lingering negative effects it had cast over Yuuri – _“If anyone else had found out about me, I could have died, you know? That made me a little bit nervous about your photo, but I’m glad you took it. I wanted you to have it, if we never saw each other again,_ ” he’d said.

She’d spent six grueling weeks helping Yuuri get used to the feeling of her magic being etching into his skin, helping him practice using it, transforming, going back and forth until his lungs had been sore and his legs felt just as familiar as his tail.

“And now,” Yuuri says, taking Victor’s hands in his own, “Now, Victor, I can be with you. I can stay here, and I can go home, and I can talk to you, and I _love_ you. I really do.”

Victor feels a lot of things, but mostly he’s upset. “Why didn’t you just. _Tell_ me all of that, before you disappeared?” Victor hasn’t cried so often since he was three years old, and now, he’s crying for the fifth time in three months. He feels ridiculous. “I was terrified that you would never come back!”

Yuuri grows still, blinking awkwardly. “What?” He shuffles a bit, unfortunately still unclothed in all of the hysteria, panicked to the point of complete vacancy. “I, uh. Well, this is…certainly not how I expected this conversation to go. Should I. Um. What should I be doing here?”

“Kiss me, dummy,” Victor cries, half ecstatic and half hysterical. “Comfort me, hug me, _anything_. Selfish ass, keeping me waiting so long.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri murmurs as soulfully as he can, kissing Victor quickly, chastely, moving forward when Victor continues to pout.

“One more time,” Victor says, closing his eyes, finally letting his shoulders relax and pressing their noses close together. “Please.”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri breathes, but he doesn’t mean it this time.

He’s never been less sorry in his life. Seeing Victor so passionate about his feelings on the matter had lit a spark in Yuuri, and he wants nothing more than to see Victor happy and driven to kiss Yuuri until the merman begs him to stop.

//

“Traveling with you is going to be wild,” Victor grumbles as Yuuri lounges on the floor, continuing to appreciate his human form. “C’mon, up you get. We have to catch a cab to the airstrip.”

Yuuri’s eyes light up at the thought. “We’re going on a plane?” Makkachin seems to perk up in tandem with Yuuri’s excitement and Victor rolls his eyes at the two of them.

“Yes,” he says, holding out a hand for his lover. “You wanted to fly, right?”

Yuuri grins wildly. As they drive, Yuuri clenches Victor’s hand tightly, becoming wide-eyed as the private jet lands and the turbines spin wildly. The pilot mentions that he’d thought Victor would be alone, but shrugs, simply going about his business and letting the two of them get settled and grab bottles of water, offering them cigarettes if they’d like.

Victor declines, so the merman whispers and asks what those are. He’s been firing questions off non-stop for the last hour, and his thirst for knowledge is truthfully endearing to Victor, who is quite the curious person himself. He answers by saying that they’re death sticks and Yuuri sticks his tongue out at that, making both of them snicker as the pilot lights up.

The brunette falls asleep after playing around with his seat and the rotating tray. Victor watches the way the sun catches on long lashes and small pearl earrings, leaning on Yuuri’s shoulder before he falls asleep.

He’s headed to Milan after all, but Yakov is going to give him an earful for bringing an addition with him, and Victor finds that he hardly has the energy to care.

More than worrying about photos for advertisement companies and high fashion brands, Victor thinks he could live with pointing his camera at this man alone in different cities around the world for the rest of his life.

//

[ _epilogue_ ]

Yakov discusses a schedule with Victor after getting a very short version of what had happened on that beach from his old protégé. When Victor’s story starts getting too long, he snaps and sends him off to chat with the designers and models, all the while attaching himself to his beau, who seems strangely overwhelmed by how much is going on.

Truthfully, as long as Victor’s willing to show his face every once in a while, slinging a portfolio over his shoulder and cranking out a hundred good photos, he’s willing to let a lot of things slide. This means that Yakov has to mark up a calendar for dates that Victor plans on being available.

It’s circled with dates that he and the brunette – _Yuuri_ , Yakov believes his name is – will be in and out of airplanes, hitting some beautiful beaches around the world, and a couple of huge tourist spots, of course.

He never does see the other man wear shorts or short sleeves, even when it’s sweltering in the photography studios where he works with Victor.

To his understanding, he loves to swim, and only then is the silver-haired man allowed to capture his lover on film. Yuuri is a private person, and Yakov respects that, he supposes.

More than anything, it feels as though Victor’s work has new life breathed into it, so refreshed by falling in love that nothing else matters.

Many years in the future, he asks Victor, “What led you to Yuuri anyways? Your cabin was miles away from the town, wasn’t it?”

“Mm,” Victor hums, reaching in his pocket for something, but he doesn’t show his old mentor what it is. “Something too odd to be believed.”

Yakov snorts. “You’re touched in the head, Vitya.”

Victor shrugs, walking away and meeting Yuuri a few paces away. “So I’ve been told.”

It’s not proper to talk about the relationship between the two men in public, so he just lets them be and keeps his mouth shut. As long as Victor is happy and his work is making both of them money, everything is fine in his book.

If Victor’s nature shots start featuring fish tails more and more, he lets this slide too.

[ _fin._ ]

**Author's Note:**

> idk if it's super relevant, but i sort of intended for this to be set in the late 80s / early 90s bc i love the fashion style of this era and i love film photography.
> 
> always a pleasure to share my work with the yoi fandom, love you all so much! ♥
> 
> ✮[my twitter](https://twitter.com/wbtrashking)  
> ✮[my tumblr](http://wbtrashking.tumblr.com/)


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